


Better

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, making it better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

Carson watched the motorcars drive away and sighed, let his shoulders relax. They were off, then, the weekend guests, and they could all go back to the daily routine. Guests were a chance to show off Downton at its best, yes, but when they were unpleasant, it put every tooth in the house on edge. These had been loud, crass Americans with spoiled children, raucous dogs in tow, and both he and Mrs. Hughes — and their small leagues of footmen and maids — had been working nonstop to pick up pillows, right knocked over vases, clean stained carpets. He shakes his head, turns.

She's walking toward him with a relieved smile and he returns it, only to widen his eyes in alarm when she stumbles on the gravel, falls to her knees. He rushes to her side and bends, takes her arm.

"Blast! I didn't even see — it's all right, Mr. Carson, I just didn't see this crack." She doesn't rise but instead sits back on her bottom, examines her knee where her stocking is torn. He looks at it with concern.

"Are you hurt?" He doesn't see any blood, just some scratches on the pale skin.

"Just my pride." She sighs, touches the scratched area gingerly, prods at it. "Nothing's broken." Elsie takes his proffered hand and rises, tests her leg, nods. "It's fine."

He's glad.

Later, she is sitting in her office poking sullenly at the sore spot when Carson knocks, enters the room, raises his brows at her actions.

"Still hurting, then?"

Elsie smiles ruefully, and shakes her head, nods, shakes again. "Not really, I suppose. A little. I feel like a young girl again; it's been a long time since I had a scraped knee. Maybe I need my mam to kiss it better." His brow furrows as he looks at the scrape and he bends over it, crouches, examines the place closer. It's quite red, and she'll have a ferocious bruise in the morning.

"I don't see any grit, so it should be all right. Perhaps put a cold cloth on it tonight." He touches the spot next to it with a gentle thumb, pushes. "Everything looks intact anyway." He means to straighten then, to stand, but her words keep playing through his mind and —

"Mr. Carson?"

— he's never been this close to her, he's crouching in front of her and her skirt is drawn above her knee and he can almost see the soft white cotton of her knickers and perhaps —

He swallows, presses his lips carefully above the sore spot and she inhales sharply, touches his head with a light hand. Kiss it better, he thinks, she wants someone to kiss it better and what's it really going to hurt? Who are they really bothering if he kisses her hurt knee? The smooth knit of her stocking is tender against his lips and he kisses there, kisses again and again, and her hand strokes his hair more urgently, neither of them speak, and he pushes the hem of her skirt a little higher, just a little, and kisses there, as well.

The kisses are chaste and small and his lips stay closed and dry and lightly feathering and he'll stop if she says stop, he won't protest if she pulls down her hem, he'll stand if she pushes at him even lightly but she isn't, she's encouraging him with those fluttering fingers on the back of his neck, combing carefully through his hair, and he can hear the soft click when she swallows hard so he kisses higher, higher, taking her hem with him and he's not kissing her stocking now but the lace edge of her knickers, the slender band of her garter. He slips the tip of his tongue into the small demarcation line between her stocking and her underwear, touches bare skin lightly and he stops, kisses her a last time, rests his cheek against her thigh.

"Better?"

Elsie rubs his neck, traces his ear, his jaw with slightly unsteady fingers.

"Better."


End file.
